The Living
by As-Long-As-I'm-Around
Summary: It's not the dead that I feel sorry for. It's those that have to live on. Set after MB.


**A/N: I love the hunger games so deeply that I want to marry it and have it's babies. **

**I know this has been done before but I couldn't help myself. Be nice, be gentle, please, that's all I ask. **

**x.**

**x.**

_It's not the dead that I feel sorry for. It's those that have to live on._

This is a phase that I have lived on, stood on and been raised upon. It wasn't always this way, but it was something I always understood. It started when my father was teaching me to hunt. I remember watching in awe as my father's bow, his aim neat, perfected over the hardships of the years, sliced into every sought of animal creature. My father would always tell me, his voice as gentle as his own heart, that the animal wouldn't suffer after death, in fact be taken to a place where it wouldn't suffer anymore. I understood the way of nature, that here in District 12; this is what we had to do for survival. Your heart had to be as fit as your physical strength to be able to conquer, quite simply, this lifestyle. Maybe there was something wrong with my heart from the beginning-maybe that's why I could grasp that concept so easily. It was my sister whose eyes would blink furiously against tears, whose mouth curved downwards in despair as a shaking hand and knife hovered over that day's kill, and that night's feast.

_"Those poor creatures," _I can picture her voice now, as soft as water flowing, as she looked up to her parents and then rested her eyes on me. Those beautiful blue eyes, daughter of a merchant, were not the only things that separated us from those labels, but our way of lifestyle. Still, Prim was mine, became mine after the death of our father. It was as if she was born to me, when he died. Its odd what happens after something ends, how another battle in life, can bring you back to the very first, tragic event that occurred in your life. Maybe that's how I had to heal; maybe it's not so odd that now she's dead, I'm thinking of when she became born to me. But this didn't feel like a healing method, it felt like a torture method. Because she was mine, and Snow stole that away from me. It may not have been by his hands directly, but it was solely him that had caused the death of my sister.

Thinking of Prim made me think of Rue, and Finnick, and Cinna. And once I started thinking about them, I couldn't stop. And as each face came across my eyes, it took me to the arena, where as someone died, the canon would go off, and their face would be displayed for all to see. Well this was a private screening, only for me.

_Boom! _Prim.

_Boom! _Rue.

_Boom! _Finnick.

I curled my feet to my stomach, trying to fold into myself, trying to hug myself or shield myself away from this torment. Surely this was torture at its finest-no physical pain could ever match this. There were hands inside me, ripping at my heart, tugging it and stretching the strings, breaking it into tiny pieces. I could feel it fall to the pit of my stomach where the invisible hands hurried there, ripping away at everything that they came across, leaving a destructive path behind them. I was sure I was going to die; no one had ever won against this pain, right? And then I was cackling through tears I didn't even know I was crying, but I could taste the saltiness on my lips as they parted, as each mad laugh escaped. I had beat the odds, all of them. So, obviously I was going to beat this too. The odds weren't really in my favour though, because each winning lead to something terrible. I could feel the bile rising in my stomach; my poor stomach that I was sure was ripped to shreds by those hands. I could feel them laughing, my ears ringing with it. It was shrill, piercing, and I moved my hands to clap them over my ears. I didn't know my laughter had changed to sobs, but I felt them wracking through my abused body, howling through my throat and breaking apart my lips with each cry. And then there were hands on me, causing my body to halt painfully in all movements. Breaths of alarms were being ripped out of me as my brain realised the new threat. And then, my body locked down in defence mode, knowing what to do because its host had lost all senses. I began to thrash, to kick off the intruder.

_"Katniss! _

When your body feels as if it's been invaded or threatened in any kind, something else takes over. When your mind can't comprehend, or is in such a poor mental state, there is something else that is deep inside us, which is pulled out and protects us. It is not always good, because these hands were gentle, soothing even, yet my body was screaming that they were that of a killer's, and something that was not me, obeyed my body's demands.

"Katniss, please. It's me, Peeta. I'm here, don't suffer through this alone, please. I'm here." His voice was hoarse; his desperation making him seem like he had been screaming for hours. Maybe he had. His hands were gentle but firm, leading them to his chest to beat against him, so he could take my pain, if it meant that I didn't have it anymore. That gesture, that one simple, selfless gesture, brought me back again, because this was Peeta. Peeta was all that was good, and right in what was left of my damaged, nightmarish world. He was selfless and loving, everything that my monsters weren't.

I froze, and he also matched my movements. Like I was a prey, and he was the hunter. Though I knew if that were to ever be the case, he would only be doing this to benefit me. In this case, he was trying to capture me from my suffering. My fingers were curled tightly around his shirt and were beginning to turn white from the loss of blood flow. I loosened my grip slowly, and then moved my shaking hands away from him, cradling them in my lap.

"Katniss." It was a breath, a whisper, but it was so heavy with everything that it might have been a thousand words long. I looked up and into his eyes, and was trapped by the depths of blue pools. They weren't their familiar colour, but instead dark and swollen with trouble. The flood of remorse and shame was so strong that it passed through my damaged stomach and vibrated against my chest, coming out in a soft moan. He reached out, tucking a strand of sweaty hair behind my ear, and then stroking my face with his cool hand.

"Peeta, I..." I what? I am the weak one and all along you were the strong one? That I want to die? That death surely is better than this? I couldn't say that to him, not to Peeta. The words came anyway, passed through my throat and came out in some sort of groan.

"You what?" He coaxed softly, stroking the hair back from my face now. He looked at me, his gaze as patient as a loving father's to his curious children.

"It's not the dead that I feel sorry for," My abused voice wheezed out, causing my chest to ache. Peeta's hand halted in my hair, still holding onto the strands.

"It's us, the living. We have to live on, while they're dead." I felt my face scrunch up, and I lay back against the sheets, too hot to get under them. They were wet anyway. Peeta sensed this and peeled them off, folding them up and putting them beside the straw basket that was meant for my dirty things, but the room's floor always sufficed. Who cared, it was such a petty thing to worry about. There was a squeak as he opened a cupboard, and then the quiet noise again as it shut. Peeta returned to my bed, and draped the blankets over me. He sat down beside me after making sure I was comfortable, before cupping my face with his palms.

"Katniss, in a way, you, me, we're dead too. We're not really living-we're, as our doctors' say, going through the motions. You can't really call that living, can you? So feel sorry enough for us, that it reminds you how much you hate pity. And then, when you begin to feel that hate, you'll know you're on your way back." His words silenced me from any other complaint, or any other form of response. Even though I wasn't good with words, what could I have possibly said in response to that, in response to Peeta and His Great Words.

"I love you. That's how I know I'm alive, because what I feel for you has a life of its own." His words jumped out of his mouth and travelled through my veins, tingling down my spine, and resting in my beating heart.

"I love you, you believe me? Even if I can't express it, even if I'm dead inside, you know I love you?" I whispered, so desperate all of a sudden for him to believe it. It was a journey in itself, amongst all others, but I'd finally reached the destination of understanding my love for him. I understood that Gale had not been cruel when he had said I would choose the one I could not survive without. He should have said living, because surviving is not living. I would choose the one I could not live without. And that was Peeta. As long as he was here, than I could live. Somehow.

"Real, yes?"

"Real." I whispered, and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards me. He understood, and crawled into the bed beside me, settling in. Although it was hot, Peeta's warmth beside me was a completely different one, and we both moved towards each other, seeking this heat. I turned and he wrapped arms around me, securing me, holding me.

"I will never leave you alone to fight your nightmares. We've always fought together, and that's not going to change now. I will not let you be hurt, Katniss." His breath tickled my neck, his lips just an inch away from the skin.

"Which means I will not leave you alone with yours." I needed to declare it back, to seal it. But I knew it was already sealed, that it had been sealed from the moment even before the games. The boy who threw the bread to me, who saved my life. Peeta Mellark had always being looking out for me.

"You've always taken care of me. Real or not real?" I felt him smile against me.

"Real, always real."


End file.
